AMA: Photography

OK, Puzzle Therapy asked:

How did you get into photography? Your travel photos are stunning. If money and time were not factors where would you travel just for the picture opportunities? What are the things you see in your day to day life that make you think, “I wish I had my camera with me now!”

I was 24 years old and living in California when I picked up my first real camera. It was a hand-me-down from my then-husband, a hobbyist photographer and gear junkie who was always changing cameras and lenses. When he upgraded from his somewhat battered Canon Rebel XTI, which he deemed not worth reselling, I snagged it and started carrying it with me everywhere.

That camera kept me company during the lonely year I spent in California. Somehow, that camera licensed me to venture out into the world and explore during a time when I might otherwise have been tempted to retreat into my unhappiness. Under its influence, I went places I wouldn’t otherwise have gone and met people I would have otherwise passed by in silence. I made a habit of hiking up on the fire trails above Berkeley after work, where I longed to see a mountain lion but settled for beautiful sunsets. I went to street festivals and protests and art galleries and rummage sales. I hunted down street art and started paying close attention to the ways people inhabited public spaces. I was looking for a sort of quietness, or stillness. I had an eye out for something that I only found an expression for years later in Paul Eluard’s poem: “There is another world, but it is inside this one.”

(Also, always, I was on the lookout for absurdity.)

At Sutro Baths, San Francisco, on my first outing with my camera, back when I still put the lens cap on. Photo by my then-husband.

I often wonder why I didn’t pick up photography earlier. My teenage heroine was Dorothea Lange, the documentary photographer who traversed the American West with her Graflex during the Great Depression. And my teenage dream was to travel the world on assignment for National Geographic. Why didn’t I want to take the photographs, too? My high school even offered a photography class. Two of my closest friends enrolled. I hung out in the dark room while they developed their negatives. I could never restrain myself from pointing out areas for improvement: what if you framed it like this? What if you put the light over there? (Every now and then, I wonder why I wasn't more popular in high school, but then I remember.) That I didn’t take an interest earlier just doesn’t add up.

I’ve still never taken a photography class of any kind or read a book about how to take decent photographs. I’ve just taken thousands and thousands of my own. I couldn’t tell you how a camera works if my life depended on it. (😬) But I love it. Being out with my camera is my portable happy place. I’ve been lucky the last several years to travel so much for work, since I can tack on a few extra days in my quest to see (and photograph) every corner of Europe. If time and money were no issue, I’d love to go back to Greece, which I find so evocative, or the heel of Italy, where I’ve never been, or the Balkans, where I could retrace Rebecca West’s steps. (If being female weren’t an issue, I’d want to take my camera to Morocco or India…)

I’ve been making an effort to carry my camera more here in Chicago the last few weeks, after experiencing too many pangs of regret at missed shots. I want to get back into street photography, which was my passion when I lived in Montreal the first time around, when the pace of my life wasn’t so hectic. I am always seeing these moments on the street: Dumbledore scrolling on her phone as she walks between Halloween parties. Lookalike dogs and owners. People on subway platforms. Discards that suggest stories. But street photography requires a leisurely pace I can’t maintain at the moment, so I’ve mostly just been photographing graveyards and sunsets at the lakefront:

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While I was working on this post, I decided to look back at the first couple of years I had my camera. I can usually see what I was trying to do, however flawed the attempt:

The Ask Me Anything post is here! Gender and especially non-gender questions welcome. Thanks for helping me come up with fresh ideas for Substack posts while I’m trying to focus on my book.